


Nights Bright Days

by whirligigged



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Dream Sex, F/M, Infidelity, M/M, OT3, Polyamory, Team Gluttony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 05:20:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2257314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whirligigged/pseuds/whirligigged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur had slept for three days and Merlin had not slept at all. Gwen wanted her husband back, wanted to chase the weary lines from Merlin's expression.</p><p>"Right," she said. "So how does one dreamwalk, exactly?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nights Bright Days

**Author's Note:**

> Cleaned up and slightly expanded. Written for summerpornathon 2011, week 7, the "Sleep" challenge. Inspiration gleefully extracted from Inception, and that one episode of Supernatural.

> _All days are nights to see till I see thee,  
>  And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me._  
>  Sonnet 43, Shakespeare

"The toxin keeps him under, and the curse they've brewed into it presents him with dreams that he won't willingly break free from. It's a clever curse." Merlin had one hand fisted in his hair. He frowned down at one of the numerous tomes he'd spread on the table, as though the text could be intimidated into producing different answers. "Wherever he is, whatever tempts him to stay down there, it's a cage created from his own imagination. That's why it's so intoxicating to the dreamer. You'll need to see what's real for him."

"Are you certain this is wise? You know so much more about it." She placed a tentative hand on his shoulder, looking about at the bubbling pots Merlin had transported here from his laboratory, the piles of scrawled notes he'd produced overnight. 

She had negotiated the terms of treaties in Arthur's stead, had dressed battle wounds. She'd found that with Arthur's dedication to keeping up with his knights and even attending the occasional patrol with them, she often knew the current state of the kingdom's taxes and grain stores better than Arthur himself did. And she knew, deep in her muscles and with the clear memory of her father's firm hands guiding hers, that she could still forge a sword better than half of Albion's blacksmiths. Yet for the first time in years, she felt utterly out of her depth. 

Around them, the pages of books fluttered with an otherwordly wind, and quills danced across parchment that then floated to Merlin's waiting hands, only for him to stare at them briefly and crumple them in frustration. Gwen had grown used to Merlin performing unbelievable miracles with the twitch of a finger. And here he was, deep shadows under his eyes, telling Guinevere that only she could perform this next miracle. 

She bit her lip, long-buried insecurity uncurling in her chest. "Wouldn't it be better for you to go?"

"Gwen." Merlin scraped his chair from the table and stood, taking her hands. "If Arthur will come back for anything…it will be for you." He smoothed his this thumbs over the backs of her hands and she gripped back, wondering at the earnest, almost wistful way he said it. "You're his anchor."

Arthur had slept for three days and Merlin had not slept at all. She wanted her husband back, wanted to chase the weary lines from Merlin's expressions.

"Right," she said. "So how does one dreamwalk, exactly?"

*

"Once you're sharing the dream, you are dreaming as well. It may be difficult to prevent yourself forgetting," Merlin said for the hundredth time, handing her water to rinse away the potion's taste.

"That stuff is vile."

"Remember what you're there for."

She cupped his cheek. "I will bring him back to us," she said, and settled into the pillows beside Arthur's still form, feeling the dreamroot take hold.

Merlin reached up to to clasp her hand, which she had begun running sleepily through his soft dark hair. He pulled her hand to his chest, holding it in both of his. "And please. It's different for every dreamer. I don't know what it will be like, and If it's too dangerous, if you can't save...just, take a care for yourself first. I can't lose you both." 

Sleep was dragging her down now, but she managed to tighten her hand around his. "Merlin, we will _all_ be together again soon."

Distantly, she felt the press of lips upon her forehead. "I'll be waiting."

*

She built herself the gates to Camelot first. The molten iron of them felt warm and happy in her hands as she shaped them, and flew open to welcome her home. Then the bedroom as she'd left it—the hearth's crackling blaze welcoming, the whole room warm with the particular sensation of being well-loved. She would not forget this.

*

Arthur had his own Camelot here. In waking, from the windows of their castle, the towns and then the green stretched out for some distance. The rest was obscured by trees and mountains. Here, Albion was an endless sprawl, reaching for the ends of the earth. The land was green with summer, but the air was crisp and clear in the particular way that autumn always was in memory. Great yellow flowers bloomed out of the tapestries, and from the chandeliers hung ripe, juicy rubies the size of her fist. She plucked a low hanging one as she passed and bit absently into it, sweetness flooding her mouth.

Low registers of his voice, murmuring, carried through the sun-bright halls as Gwen approached their bedchambers. She pushed open the door.

They knelt together on the bed, gasping and naked. Merlin's lithe neck was thrown back exquisitely. Arthur pressed lush kisses to it, saying Merlin's name lowly, over and over. Their cocks glistened, trapped between their taut bellies, and Arthur would reach down and drag his big hand down them till they both groaned or his hand moved again, running all along Merlin's body as though to memorize it a last time.

The desperation to the scene before her made it feel, for a moment, terribly separate from her, as though she were not watching her two best friends before her, but rather reading a very sad story from a book.

This was the thing Arthur could not tell her of, the thing that kept him willingly trapped in the gripping sleep. The revelation hit Gwen heavily, the way a blacksmith's hammer strikes. A sob escaped her throat.

Arthur turned and said, "Guinevere," not with the wide-eyed guilt of the adulterer, but beaming. There was no less feeling in his expression now than the one he wore three days ago, saying good night to her as they lay together, sated.

Merlin grinned with a carefree ease she had not seen in years. He held out his hand. It was the most natural thing in the world to go to them, to take Merlin's hand, and Arthur's.

*

The familiar scent and taste of Arthur overwhelmed her senses as she took him in her mouth, dragged her tongue up his ridge and along his slit. She moaned around his cock when Merlin thrust his tongue into her again, and then again and again, his strong fingers massaging her clit until she grasped Arthur's hips and pulled off, gasping. She let the climax wash over her and even floated a little into the air with a pleased sigh.

Merlin kneeled up, putting two fingers beneath Arthur's chin and drawing him close to share her juices between their mouths.

*

Gwen was forgetting something, but some promise pulled her down the maze of corridors, at first slowly, confused, too many bedrooms in the castle for Merlin to push them into with a teasing hand on each their arses. They loved each other for hours on velvet bedspreads, on tables, on huge grassy meadows contained in the boundaries of four walls.

She rose from the tangle of limbs with sudden clarity. "Merlin is waiting," she said.

"Merlin's right here!"

"Please. Trust, me, Arthur." Arthur cast a wild-eyed glance back at Merlin, but he turned to her, nodded. She grasped Arthur's wrist and ran. They flew, their feet rising above the floor and carrying them faster than the bedrooms could entice them.

They burst out of Camelot's gates and into her twin Camelot, the warm bedroom, fell into the bed together in a panting heap. "Sleep," she said, pulling the blankets over their heads. The sheets curved into a silken cocoon around them, forming layer after layer until it was solid, safe. Arthur reached for her, face wet, and they curled around one another, kissing until they both, finally, dozed. 

*

Gwen and Arthur awoke to find Merlin asleep in a chair, head resting on top of Gwen's knees. Together, they tugged his mumbling, confused form into the bed with them. None of them slept for some time after that.


End file.
